Cynthia snapped off the light and hauled herself into the upper bunk. Paris tomorrow! But she wasn’t afraid of her luck any more. She’d proved it would stand by her. CHAPTER 2 _Paris_ CORNED BEEF HASH Steamship and steamer friends had been left behind. Paris was ahead, closer now with every minute, every hurrying second. The little French girl who had kept on her hat and gloves and had read, in silence, a paper covered copy of Anatole France all the way from Cherbourg, let down the window, leaned out to wave a beckoning hand, and shouted, “_Porteur! Porteur!_” Cynthia waited patiently, but as the other seemed in no haste to relinquish her place at the window, the American finally leaned over the French girl’s shoulder and beckoned in similar fashion. The long train slid gently to a stop and a score of stout little blue smocked men seemed to spring from the ground and began taking baggage from the open windows, loading it on wide straps over their sturdy shoulders. Cynthia captured the eye of number 972; a beady eye above a red nose and a moustache that would have graced a member of the Beggar’s Opera. She gulped, “Taxi!”--thank goodness, there was a word that meant the same in several languages, at which he grinned cheerfully and slung her heavy suitcase and her paint box in one huge paw. The other grasped her neighbor’s bags and the whole strange and unwieldy combination lumbered off down the platform. Was he gone for good? Better follow that French girl, Cynthia decided. She seemed unconcerned. Oh, one had to give up the ticket here, and there was the porter again. No more customs, that had all been cleared at the quay, earlier in the morning. The street met her with a blast of warm July air, a dazzle of summer sunlight and such a medley of strange noises: taxis hooting in a new, high key; shrill-pitched voices, mingled shouts and confusion, that she stood for a moment bewildered and lost. Horrid luck that no one she knew from the boat had been coming to Paris on this train! Then Cynthia saw that her bag and paint box had been piled into a taxi like a shiny black beetle and the blue smocked one waited for his _pourboire_. She tipped him ten francs. Was that too much, or too little? She had been warned that, in either case, he would glare, but this one smiled, muttered, “_Merci!_” and departed. The hotel address was written on a card and Cynthia had only to show that to the driver, hop in, and they were off. “Well!” “Well, so this is Paris!” “Well ...,” Cynthia giggled nervously. To be really here. To have arrived safely, all by herself. Well, that was something. “Paris!”